Beyond the Dark Clouds

 

I’ve found myself feeling a bit like Cameron Frye in the film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986) this week. Watching my follower count on Bluesky take off like the odometer of his father’s prized Ferrari when it gets boosted by two garage attendants, who take it for a surreptitious day-long spin, had me gasping in utter disbelief. It’s been several days now and there still seems to be no let up. But, so far (and keeping my fingers firmly crossed), this seems to be a good thing.

 

I moved over to Bluesky from Twitter a little over a year ago. This was when Twitter was beginning to shift irremediably away from all the things which, for me, had previously made it so invaluable. Back then, quite a few people also made the move. But, sadly, many of them soon seemed to drift back to Twitter, or rather X, as it is now meaninglessly known. In some ways this reflected the general disorientation of people who had grown so acculturated to what Twitter had once been. I think the problem was that there were too many alternatives offering asylum, and, at that point, it was impossible to reach a consensus about which platform would fill the malevolent blackhole-like void that Twitter was swiftly morphing into. Threads, Mastodon, or Bluesky? – People couldn’t decide.

 

I tried Mastodon first, but I couldn’t get my head around how it operated. I found it a frustrating and completely fruitless experience. I’m not on Instagram, and so Threads didn’t appeal. As for Bluesky, well – at this point, you needed an invite code. Initially this made me somewhat suspicious of it. But when I saw some people I knew and trusted announcing they’d joined Bluesky, I managed to get a code from a friend whose lead I was more than happy to follow. At first, I found Bluesky, like Mastodon, a bit awkward and clunky to operate. Plus, most of the historians who’d migrated to Bluesky all seemed to be medievalists – a field I’m interested in, but certainly not my academic specialism, and so there was little there for me to engage with. Consequently, for a long time, Bluesky seemed like a new planet which I was orbiting solo, like a lonely Michael Collins circling the Moon when left on his own during NASA’s Apollo 11 mission. However, I now see that this was in fact a blessing in disguise.

 

Firstly, the relatively diminutive size of this pool of people newly signed up to Bluesky (when compared to Twitter) meant that traffic on the platform was fairly slow. Consequently, it didn’t take long for me to catch up on what people were posting each day! – Another reason for this was the fact that most users seemed to be based in Europe, the UK, and the USA. I live in Japan. Hence the time difference meant that most people whom I followed posted while I was asleep, and, vice versa, my posts appeared during their nocturnal slumbers. The second boon to this new ‘slow-travel’ style social media was that it gave me plenty of space and time to see how Bluesky actually differed from Twitter, particularly in terms of how it operated.

 

Bluesky is all about ‘Feeds,’ (NB – plural). Like the newsfeed on other social media sites, Bluesky encourages the creation of multiple feeds, enabling users to filter posts using certain topic markers (e.g. #hashtags, emojis, or particular words). You can opt to follow a feed, thereby more easily allowing you to see posts upon certain themes or subjects (for example, ‘What Is History?’) without having to follow those particular posters directly. This really appealed to me and was probably the main reason why I persisted with Bluesky, abandoning Mastodon and slowly started to tune out of Twitter/X. On Twitter I had already set up for myself something very similar to ‘Feeds’ in the form of private ‘Lists’ devoted to certain topics. In order to ensure that my lists didn’t double-up on content, I realised it was important that I should assign a person or institution’s profile to one list only. This seemed to work well, and so I repeated the system by creating my own lists on Bluesky, which I use alongside the various feeds other people have set up. The disadvantage to lists, however, is that they show all of a person’s posts, whereas feeds are more specifically tailored to whatever topic they are dedicated to. This neatly by-passes the frustration of following Professor Stein because of their particular specialism (say, ‘Voodoo Economics’), only to find Professor Stein almost never posts about their specialism!

 

I’m certainly no computer whizz kid, but I now see that it was handy to have signed up to Bluesky at such an early point. I saw how some of the functionality of Bluesky evolved or was newly introduced by its developers. I think the fact that it wasn’t fully developed was one of the reasons why the site began as invite only. Having said that though, it is – to certain extents – still a site “under construction,” but this is essentially because it is developing elements of functionality which Twitter never had. So far these elements make it feel far more like the user is in control. Functions such as properly effective ‘blocking’ and ‘muting,’ as well as the ability to detached your posts from other users who ‘quote re-post’ it – these are great ways to manage how people interact with you and how you engage with the platform as a whole. The idea being to deaden the effect of trolling and the kind of angry collective bullying which could so easily and needlessly be sparked on Twitter. Specifically because of caring and well thought-out, user-minded strategies like these, it is vocally hoped by the majority of Bluesky users at present that a new and more equitable kind of social media platform will be created as a result of these innovations. A new social media platform which hopefully will promote a culture of mutual respect, one which will allow a more civil and welcoming mode of engagement to flourish.

 

This is what Twitter used to be for me when I first logged on. I was quite late in joining up to social media as a whole. It all seemed a bit unfathomable and somewhat geeky-cliquey to me. But after being badgered by many friends – especially those who were located overseas – who assured me that it was a great way to keep in touch over long distances, I was eventually persuaded to sign up to platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. This seemed to me like voluntarily opting to plug myself into the sinister Matrix-like circuits of the world wide web. I still feel a bit wary of this ‘Brave New World’ and its insidious algorithms.

 

But signing up to Twitter, in particular, just at the moment when I was returning to university as a mature student doing an MA degree was actually a total gift. I found it hugely useful on an academic front. It was a great way to keep up-to-date with new innovations and trends in the subject fields which interested me. It was also a great way to network with other people with similar interests. I made so many useful connections, some of which also transitioned into real world connections. Writing this blog, Waymarks, was also a big part of that too. Initially I began blogging purely as a personal recreation, and as a way of fending off the paralysing effect of staring at a blank page – writing regularly, so as to hone my writing and editing skills; and doing so publicly, as a means to sharpen and clarify how I said what I said. Something which you can’t really do when you simply scribble in private notebooks that live only in your desk drawer, or type out manuscripts which sit unread by others on your hard drive, consigned and condemned to a potentially sightless posterity.

 

It’s been very sad to watch the demise of Twitter since it was taken over by Elon Musk. He’s still trying to tout it as “the world’s town square,” when in fact it is increasingly becoming his personal self-aggrandising stadium for political and socially coercive rallies. Cynically, I think this was always his aim and intention all along. It seems to have paid off for him as well. People were quick to laugh at the $44 billion he paid for the site when its value suddenly plummeted soon thereafter. But, ludicrously, that sum of money is nothing to the world’s richest man. I thought at the time that he’d merely bought it in order to run it into the ground; intending either to totally transform it beyond all recognition, or, if that failed, then simply to destroy it. And it seems like he has succeeded too.

 

It’s not the first time that I’ve watched something like this happen. Back in the early days of the internet, before Facebook et al existed, I used to enjoy posting on a regional UK internet forum or chat board called ‘Knowhere.’ Such websites were purely text-based, and this meant they required more effort in terms of engagement and attention. There were no memes, no gifs. You scrolled much more slowly and carefully. Reading, rather than looking. The Knowhere chat board for my hometown was a wonderful open space for kind and courteous, community-minded discussions, as well as a space for sharing local history stories, which is what I liked best about it. But it was slowly taken over by a band of nasty oiks whose sole intention was to totally hijack the site and overwhelmingly fill it with mindless profanities and unprovoked personal attacks. What seems most remarkable about this collective act of verbal vandalism, looking back now, is that this occurred long before legions of bots could be programmed to do the same. Anonymity, especially that offered by the internet, has always been the greatest enabler of the meanest, most selfish and wilfully ignorant, mob-minded sort of people to wreak unwarranted havoc.

 

In this regard, the social history element in the evolution of social media has been a fascinating thing to observe over the course of the last twenty years or so. The rise and demise of Twitter is just another cycle of waxing and waning in that process. It’s been amusing to watch, this week especially, as the so-called social media ‘big hitters’ who have resisted leaving the platform, presumably because of the significant size of their follower counts, have one-by-one steadily begun to realise that their faithful flock are now deserting the paddock in droves and are running for the hills! – Only when all the big names and big institutions leave Twitter en masse will it be deemed to have truly died, but the truth is Twitter was already dead long before that. The ‘elite’ need the hoi polloi, ‘twas ever thus. Bread and circuses are only one part of the silent deal.

 

But what am I to make of this sudden transformation personally, particularly in the form of all my 1000+ new followers on Bluesky? – I don’t imagine for a moment that it means anything in particular. The main reason for it is a new innovation on Bluesky, known as ‘Starter Packs.’ They work somewhat akin to the way feeds do. Essentially, they are lists of Bluesky users which a user can create according to whatever theme they choose – for instance, grouping all users who call themselves ‘Medievalists,’  ‘Retro-Anime Artists,’ or ‘Astrophotographers,’ etc – which other users can peruse and choose to follow individually, or they can press a button and follow all of the users listed in toto. I’ve been added to a couple of ‘Starter Packs’ and I have no doubt I have been followed as a result of people pressing that ‘Follow All’ button. Consequently, I’m sure I’ve been followed by a large number of people who probably haven’t even seen my Bluesky profile, and who will no doubt in due course wonder why my posts are showing up in their personal feeds when I post about things that have nothing to do with what they are interested in. For example, I’ve been added to a list of scholars who post upon the subject of ‘Buddhist Studies’ – and to be fair, I am interested in this and I do sometimes post about it. But, in truth, I will – in all likelihood – do so very rarely. Most of my posts will be about the ‘Histories of Exploration & Travel Writing’ (a starter pack which I myself set up), or only appeal to the niche interests of ‘Imperialism & Commonwealth Historians’ (a starter pack to which I was added by someone else).

 

There will, no doubt, be a reckoning in due course. Follower count odometers will be “cracked open and rolled back by hand.” Bluesky will eventually settle down and find its own sense of equilibrium. The current, Ferrari joy-riding sense of euphoria will come to an end and normality will prevail. But hopefully, that new sense of normality will be one which makes the world wide web a little less divisive and a lot more welcoming and user friendly. More power to the people; less power to the oikish oligarchs and autocrats who have muscled their way in! – We can evade them, if we want to. There is always a blue sky beyond the dark clouds – No Pasaran!

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Remembering Ralph Jackson

Dr Ralph Jackson (1950-2024)

 

Very sadly my friend and former colleague at the British Museum, Ralph Jackson, passed away on 16 September 2024. 

I first met Ralph in February 1991, when I began volunteering in the Department of Prehistoric and Romano-British Antiquities at the BM. I was still at school at that time, studying for my GCSEs, and Ralph was one of the most welcoming members of the Department. I still remember him looking up and giving me a warm, friendly smile when I inadvertently ventured into his small corner of the Students Room. I was nosily looking around the place, exploring the labyrinthine byways of this large, communal room which was overly-stuffed with furniture, typewriters, microscopes, light-boxes, desk-mounted magnifying glasses, photo-stands, card indexes, padded baskets and trays for safely handling and examining artefacts. It was crammed with all manner of bookishly curious and intriguing things. There seemed to be tall cupboards, filing cabinets and plans chests everywhere, behind which were hidden desks and tables, all heaped with books, maps, papers and pot plants, and, squirreled away amongst it all were quietly studious people, all busily working away. The walls surrounding the room were lined with floor-to-ceiling shelves chockful of books behind sliding glass doors. It was a deeply scholarly space, perched high upon the roof, hidden behind the Museum’s pediment, overlooking the green dome of the Round Reading Room. I apologised for disturbing him, but Ralph sat back in his chair, having first reached for his cup of coffee (which I noted stood next to a small cafetiere on his desk – this seemed to me to be the height of scholarly sophistication!). He told me I wasn’t intruding at all and asked me how I was getting on. Pleased to find him so open and affable, I remember I asked him: “So what do you do?”

 

Ralph was primarily an archaeologist of Roman Britain, but he was also a curator who specialised in the study of Greco-Roman medicine, becoming an expert in bronze medical instruments and also cosmetic grinders, the latter in particular was an area of small finds analysis (or material culture studies, as it’s called nowadays) which he largely pioneered. Many of the ancient surgical implements he studied are surprisingly similar to those used in hospitals today. He used to speak with fluid ease and eloquence about the writings of Galen and other Roman writers with a familiarity which made it seem like he’d actually known these ancient writers personally. Similarly, he could talk in forensic detail (with a quietly-knowing, showman-like glint in his eye) about some of the unanaesthetised medical practices and surgical procedures used by ancient doctors with a steady and unflinching sense of immediacy which was decidedly not for the squeamish or faint of heart!

Doctors and Diseases in the Roman Empire (1988)

During his long and distinguished career at the BM, Ralph co-directed a number of archaeological excavations, most notably at Stonea in Cambridgeshire and at Ashwell in Hertfordshire. Unfortunately, I never got a chance to dig with Ralph, although I did help with some of the final post-excavation work on Stonea after I joined the Department as a full-time member of staff having graduated from university with my first degree. Most of my work with Ralph during that time centred on creating museum displays at the BM. I first worked closely with him (and a huge cross-departmental team of people) on a totally new suite of permanent exhibition galleries dedicated to telling the history of Roman Britain which opened in 1997. These displays, which remain largely unchanged to this day, are hugely popular – especially with visiting parties of school children. 

Soon after the Roman Britain gallery opened, Ralph and I worked together on a special temporary display of the recently excavated grave of a Romano-British doctor found near Colchester, at Stanway in Essex. The complete assemblage of objects from this grave, comprised a bronze skillet and a number of ceramic vessels, including an amphora, along with a set of surgical implements and a number of glass gaming pieces which had clearly been set out – in positions ready to commence playing – upon a wooden gaming board, which had long since decomposed and disappeared in the soil. Ralph described the significance of this ‘healer’s’ grave (dated circa AD 50-60) in his most recent book, noting the find as: ‘The earliest surviving firm evidence of instrumentation for surgical practice in Britain – and, indeed, one of the earliest dated kits from the Roman Empire.’ (Jackson, Greek and Roman Medicine at the British Museum (2023), p. 20; see also Figure 22a-d, p. 22). At the time I’d read about the discovery of this grave in a local newspaper article which had been saved for me by a relative who lived nearby, so it was quite a treat to get to work with these objects and put them on show for the visiting public in the new Roman Britain gallery. It also meant I got a chance to explore Colchester Museum with Ralph when we later returned the grave goods at the end of the loan; the foundations of the building – which is a Norman Castle – are actually the vaults of a Roman temple to the deified Emperor Claudius that date from the period when Colchester was the capital of the Roman province of Britannia.

Installing the Stanway Doctor's Grave display with Ralph, c.1997 (photo by Catherine Johns).

 

A few years later, I worked with Ralph on an exhibition, entitled Gladiators and Caesars: The Power of Spectacle in Ancient Rome, which had previously been on show at two museums in Germany. It was the first large special exhibition which I had properly worked on and it happened to coincide with the release of Ridley Scott’s famous film, Gladiator (2000). We had a clip from the film which showed the fighting in the Colosseum, along with another clip of the chariot race from Ben-Hur (1959), both of which played on a loop at the centre of the exhibition. There was even talk of inviting Russell Crowe to open the exhibition. It was opened though by another Hollywood luminary also with Roman-acting credentials, Mark Rylance; who was then most famous for his work at The Globe Theatre in London, particularly in staging and acting in Shakespeare’s play, Julius Caesar. I was lucky enough to meet Mark Rylance at the exhibition opening, although oddly enough Rylance never actually saw my face because I had been persuaded (by Ralph, among others) to dress up in a full-scale replica set of gladiatorial armour! – I’m not sure I’d have been so readily persuaded to do this for anyone else on the staff other than Ralph, who was always such a genial and supportive soul that it was impossible to say no.

Gladiators and Caesars (2000)

Ralph was a genuinely warm and supportive colleague. He instantly picked up the phone and called the Personnel Department to see if the Museum was still part of a Civil Service accommodation assistance scheme that he knew about when I was having trouble finding somewhere to live. Unfortunately, the Museum wasn’t part of the scheme any longer, but the gesture spoke volumes about Ralph’s capacity for empathy and his desire to help. It was nice to be able to re-pay kind favours such as these, especially when during the course of the Gladiators and Caesars exhibition I was contacted by Roy Friendship-Taylor, the director of a dig on a Roman Villa site in Northamptonshire which I’d been a member of for many years, where a bronze and iron folding knife depicting a gladiator had just been unearthed. I went up to Northampton and took a look at it, identifying it as showing a type of gladiator known as a Secutor – the ‘chaser,’ who was usually pitted against the Retiarius, or ‘net fighter.’ Returning to London, Ralph and I were then absolutely thrilled that we managed to get the knife conserved and included in the exhibition. It is now on long-term loan to the BM and can be seen on display in the Roman Britain gallery (Room 49).

Greek and Roman Medicine at the British Museum (2023)

After I left the Prehistory and Roman Britain Department, Ralph and I remained in touch. He used to tell me about the projects he was working on and often invited me to the launch of his publications, such that it felt like that question I’d first asked him in February 1991 had continued to echo and be answered down the years. The last time I bumped into him, after he had retired – not all that long ago, we had a long chat, and he briefly mentioned that he’d been ill, but he didn’t go into details as he usually did concerning medical matters when they related to ancient Romans. It was a shock later on to find out just how unwell he was. But I’m glad – having known Ralph for such a long time – that I was able, in company with a number of my former colleagues, to pass on a message of love and support to Ralph shortly before he died. And it’s a curious thing, because, just at the time that he passed away, I had a very vivid memory of Ralph, which popped into my mind unprompted while I slept, in which Ralph appeared and asked me in his characteristic way: “How are you getting on? – Everything OK?”

Warm, witty, kind, inquisitive, and reassuring – Ralph was a true gentleman with a generous heart and a great soul. He will be greatly missed by all those who were fortunate enough to have known him.

Ralph Jackson talking about Roman surgical instruments, c.2001.

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Ralph Jackson - Obituary, by Richard Hobbs (The Guardian)

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Postscript: Curiously enough, another gladiator knife with a Secutor-type handle has recently been found in the UK, just as Ridley Scott's sequel to Gladiator is about to open in cinemas. "What we do in life echoes in eternity," indeed. – I'm sure this parallel would have made Ralph smile.